Instructors make more at LTC than UW-Manitowoc

Jan. 5, 2013

Individuals arrive at Lakeshore Technical College in Cleveland earlier this week. Gannett Wisconsin Media begins a series today and for the next four weekends called 'What We Pay.' The series will look at a variety of salaries in Manitowoc County and across the state. / Bruce Halmo/Gannett Wisconsin Media

Written by

Cindy Hodgson

HTR Media

MANITOWOC — Professors at the University of Wisconsin-Manitowoc earned an average of $56,737 in 2011-12, putting the campus sixth in average professor pay out of the 13 two-year campuses that make up the University of Wisconsin Colleges.

The average salary for the UW Colleges overall was $56,487.

Instructors at Lakeshore Technical College earned an average of $82,311 in 2011-12, compared to the $89,831 average for the 16 schools in the Wisconsin Technical College System.

For both the UW Colleges and the technical schools, those figures include overload pay, called overages for the tech schools, which is payment the instructors receive for teaching extra classes or doing additional work beyond what they’re contracted to do.

UW Colleges is considered a single entity with 13 campuses plus its online component. Starting salaries, set by institutional policy, are the same for all of the campuses, according to Teri Venker, executive director of university relations for the University of Wisconsin Colleges and University of Wisconsin-Extension. The starting salary currently is $43,000 for assistant professors with a nine-month appointment in all disciplines except business, economics and engineering, which are higher.

Comparisons

The highest average salary among the UW Colleges campuses, including overloads, is $60,584 at UW-Waukesha; the lowest, $51,655, is at UW-Baraboo. UW-Sheboygan, the closest campus to Manitowoc County geographically, is $54,381.

Charles Clark, who has been UW-Manitowoc dean and campus executive officer since July 1, 2011, is the highest-paid employee at UW-Manitowoc with a salary of $116,000. Comparing with the four campuses closest in size to UW-Manitowoc, Clark’s salary is less than the dean at UW-Barron County, who makes $127,160, but more than those in Fond du Lac, Marshfield and Baraboo, where the salaries range from just under $106,000 to about $108,000.

In terms of headcount enrollment, UW-Manitowoc is the fourth-lowest of the 13 campuses at 614 students for 2012-13.

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UW-Manitowoc overload pay

Aside from Clark, the rest of the school’s top 10 salaries, including overload pay, range from an associate professor earning $58,673 to a professor making $78,839.

A professor’s workload, in addition to “scholarship” and “service,” consists of teaching 24 credits throughout the academic year, according to Clark. Teaching during UW-Manitowoc’s “winterim” session – an accelerated session during winter break – counts as an overload, as does taking on an additional section of a class during the fall or spring semester. However, Clark said the “first approach” if an extra section is needed is to look for an additional part-time instructor.

Teaching a continuing education course, doing additional work on a grant during the regular school year, and developing a distance education format for a course are among other situations that would result in overload pay, according to Venker.

At UW-Manitowoc, overload pay for 2011-12 ranged from $75 to $9,006, but there were many faculty members with no overload.

“Teaching overloads during the semester are ... not common,” Clark said. “Faculty are not clamoring for overloads, and I think a significant reason why they are not is that our faculty are not in their professions because they want to earn as much money as they possibly can earn. They’re in their professions because they’re dedicated to their discipline, they’re dedicated to being college faculty who work with ... students and help the students succeed.”

LTC overages

Overages are common in Wisconsin’s technical colleges. The average overage among full-time instructors across the Wisconsin Technical College System in 2011-12 was $12,192. At Lakeshore Technical College, the average was $10,287, making LTC the sixth highest of the 16 campuses in the system.

Economics instructor James Mani had the highest overage at LTC at $61,303 in addition to his base pay of $82,300. The rest of the Top 10 range from $21,288 to $36,894.

It can be difficult to find adjunct faculty to teach daytime classes because they usually have other full-time positions, according to Kathy Kotajarvi, human resources director for LTC, so when additional sections are needed they’re often added to the workload of existing instructors.

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But the really large overages are the result of faculty members providing on-site training for businesses that contract with LTC for customized workforce training, said LTC President Michael Lanser.

For instance, Mani’s overage pay includes $54,900 for workforce training and $6,100 for teaching economics in the summer, according to Kotajarvi.

In Mani’s case, some companies requested him specifically and others requested a skill that no one else on staff at LTC has, Kotajarvi said.

“He’s very well known in certain business and manufacturing realms,” she said.

LTC salaries

Unlike the UW Colleges, salaries at Wisconsin’s technical schools are determined locally. At LTC, the administration brings a recommendation to the LTC board, which makes the final decision, according to Lanser.

The college also compares its salaries to what the instructors could make in the private sector. For instance, if the school is hiring a welding instructor, it looks at what experienced welders are making.

In general, LTC requires instructors to have a bachelor’s degree, although in some fields they’re allowed to have seven years of occupational experience instead, sometimes along with a specialized training certificate, according to Kotajarvi.

LTC has eight employees making more than $100,000 in 2012-13 in base wages, all of them in administrative positions. More than 70 employees are listed as having base salaries of $75,000 or more.

Comparisons

Lanser is at the top of the list with a base salary of $145,963 for 2012-13, but his is the second-lowest salary of the presidents at the 16 schools in the Wisconsin Technical College System; it was the lowest in 2011-12. Lanser has been at LTC for 25 years, the last nine and a half as president. The presidents of the two schools closest in size to LTC are making $165,000 and $175,000.

Lanser said because of budget concerns, there have been years he has recommended a pay freeze or smaller increase for himself and others in management.

With a total enrollment of 12,886 students this year, LTC has the fifth-lowest enrollment of the 16 campuses.